1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a printing apparatus, and is applicable to, for example, a card printing apparatus for printing a color image on, for example, a card printing medium.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, there are card printing apparatuses to print a color image on a card printing medium using the dyestuff thermal transfer system. These types of card printing apparatuses print a color image on a card printing medium (hereinafter called as "card"), onto which dyestuffs are thermally transferred with a thermal transfer head sequentially one upon another, dyestuffs comprising sets of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black dyestuffs applied at an equal pitch on a ribbon, based on color image information read optically from a color photograph or color image information from a video camera (Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 11370/1987).
Some card printing apparatuses transfer a film sheet arranged after yellow, magenta, cyan, and black dyestuffs on a ribbon to laminate a card without a specific lamination device. This type of card printing apparatus prints an identification card used, for example, to identify coming and going people, that is, an ID card. In this case, a security problem arises with the ID card.
For example, there are bank cards and credit cards with a holograph on a film laminated on the card surface which are difficult to forge or alter and, hence, these ensure high security. Therefore, the utility of a card printing apparatus increases if an ID card can be printed that is difficult to forge or alter, when the ID card is printed with a card printing apparatus. Including an ID card, the design effect of the usual card printing apparatus increases if, for example, a mat texture can be processed onto a silver chloride photograph to improve the appearance of the printed sample.